1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a device managing apparatus, a method of controlling the same, and a control program.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, a variety of peripheral devices such as computers and printers have been generally connected to each other via a local area network so that many users can share the resources of the devices.
To check the operative status of a printer in such a network environment, it is necessary to refer to the operating panel of the printer, but a printer which is shared by many users is not always placed in the vicinity of computers operated by the users. Also, the operating panel of a printer has only a small display area for displaying information, and hence the amount of information which can be displayed is limited. Thus, it is difficult to correctly recognize the operative status of the printer.
For this reason, a network device managing program has been introduced which makes it possible to recognize the operative statuses of devices such as a printer connected to a client via a network. According to the network device managing program, notifications which notify the settings of device operations, the occurrence of a failure in a device, and so forth can be displayed on the display of the client.
Such a network device managing program must be installed in each of a plurality of clients connected to a network, and for example, in the case where the administrator of the network collectively manages the clients, it takes a lot of time to e.g. manage the version. To address this problem, a network device managing program has been introduced which is installed in a WWW server connected to clients and devices via a network (refer to Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2003-108448, for example).
According to the network device managing program, the devices can be collectively managed by the WWW server, and the operative statuses of the devices can be checked through the operation of the clients via a browser program. The network device managing program generates an HTML page which displays a list of devices connected to the network (hereinafter referred to as “the device list page”) and an HTML page which is linked to the device list page and displays and configures detailed device management information on each device (hereinafter referred to as “the device management page”), and displays the generated HTML pages on the displays of the clients.
On the other hand, a device such as a printer having a unique device management page has also been introduced. Such a device has a WWW server program which enables a unique device management page of the device to be displayed on a client by the user setting reference information comprised of a network address of the device, a preset port number, or an alias in a WWW browser program of the client.
According to the network device managing program, however, even for a device which has a WWW server program and a unique device management page, a device management page corresponding to the functional specification of the device is newly created. Therefore, in the case where a device which is to be managed according to the network device managing program is newly developed, the network device managing program must be provided with a function of creating a device management page corresponding to the newly developed device, and this increases resources such as time and costs required for developing the network device managing program.
Further, the unique device management page of the device is used to manage only the device, and hence it is impossible to collectively manage a plurality of devices connected to a network.